Chapter One
CORBIN
Just as I pulled into my garage, my phone lit up with an incoming message.
Victoria: Want to come by?
Closing my eyes, I rested my head back, imagining her blonde waves cascading down her back. My hand twitched with the need to bury it in her hair—to control the depth she took me. I could hold her however I wanted her. Victoria never complained and was always up to play.
The idea almost tempted me enough to put the car in reverse and head over.
Almost.
As much as I wanted to bury the frustrations of the day away in a hard fuck, I also didn’t. Luscious curves faded away to a quiet night—the first warm one of the season—and a cold beer by the pool. With a deep exhale, I opened my eyes to find them staring back in the rear-view mirror.
“Fuck, you’re old,” I muttered to my reflection.
With a sound of disgust, I looked away, grabbed my briefcase, and trudged toward my empty house, wondering when the hell staying home alone became more enticing than losing myself in a willing body. Probably around my thirty-fifth birthday. At least, that was when my ex-wife would claim I became a “boring, excuse of a man.”
But I’d say it was more around thirty-four when my mentor and friend, Alec, passed away, leaving me guardian of his teenage daughter. Death had a way of putting life into perspective, especially when it came with the responsibility of caring for someone else.
Not that I’d done much caring. She’d stayed with me for all of a month before Juliette shipped her off to boarding school. But that was six years ago, and through our occasional emails, I knew she was moving back. While I hadn’t had much of a presence in her life, I made sure she knew she should stay here until she got settled.
I chuckled, thinking of her one-word reply: Okay.
The uninformative answer left me guessing when she’d arrive—if she’d arrive. Not that I could blame her. I’d only met her a handful of times throughout the years before I became her guardian, and in the month after her father’s death, she’d mostly stayed in her room. Somehow, over the last six years, we managed to keep our relationship to sparse emails and not a single visit. I wasn’t even sure I’d recognize her if she showed up.
The only thing I remembered were her large eyes. A startling icy gray that somehow also burned with fire.
“Fuck,” I muttered again, knowing I’d have to go beyond an email and pick up the phone to get more details. “Next week,” I promised. “Next week, I’ll call and get more out of her than a simple okay. I swear, no one knows how to fucking email anymore. What happened to hello and sincerely?”
Without turning on any lights, I kicked off my shoes and socks before making my way through the dark to the fridge to grab a beer. The moon and stars greeted me as soon as I stepped out to the open back patio. They shined bright, and I sucked in a deep breath of warm, humid air. Perfect.
The splash of cold beer on my tongue was so refreshing I could hear it.
It wasn’t until I swallowed that I heard the splash again. And again.
My muscles pulled tight, ready to chase some kids from fucking around in my backyard. However, when I scanned the pool, it wasn’t until I searched the far side that I caught sight of a single form moving around the darkened shallow end.
“What the fuck?”
A lithe body rose from the water, one step at a time, moving with the confidence of someone who belonged. Squinting, I tried to make out the face, reminding myself to install the motion-sensing lights.
The person swayed with every step closer—obviously feminine.
“Victoria?” I asked. Maybe I read her message wrong, and she asked to come over? My mind scrambled over itself to make sense of the situation.
“I don’t know who Victoria is, but it sure as shit isn’t me,” an oddly familiar voice responded. “Sorry to disappoint.”
The possible stranger closed in, and I realized two things when she neared the only light creeping along the backyard, coming from above the kitchen sink.
One: This was no stranger. Gray eyes—both cold and hot, flashed in the darkness above a pert nose and full, smirking lips.
And two: She was damn near naked.
Too many of my senses worked overtime, leaving all of them barely functioning. My brain lagged behind while my eyes absorbed everything. The soaking strands of dark hair sent rivulets of water dripping down the gentle curve of her breasts. Some got caught on the tips of her hard, rosy nipples before dropping further across her flat stomach to vanish into the dark edge of her lacy underwear she thankfully kept on.
While I stood there, struggling to untangle everything, she strutted past me to grab a towel that draped over a patio chair. Once she left my periphery, my brain came back online. I took another—longer—swig of my beer, buying myself time before I had to turn and address her.